The Wiccan ultimate deity manifests itself as a male deity (the god) and female deity (the goddess). The concept of manifestation in Wicca appears to be derived from the concept of emanation in Neoplatonism. The Plotinian One, for instance, emanates the Divine Mind, which is split into a duality based on the subject-object polarity of cognition. However, the similarities with Neoplatonism quickly end. The Wiccan god and goddess are intended not as disembodied and intellectual, but as highly carnal and sexual.

The Farrars write that “the God and Goddess [are] aspects of the Ultimate Source” (1981: 49). Buckland explains that the Wiccan ultimate deity manifests itself to us as the male god and female goddess (1986: 19-21). He writes that “in their early development, people came to worship to principle deities: the Horned God of Hunting and the Goddess of Fertility. . . . In virtually all instances . . . the Ultimate Deity was equated with both masculine and feminine . . . broken down into a god and a goddess. This would seem most natural since everywhere in nature is found this duality.” (1986: 20).

Cunningham writes that Wiccans gain personal access (both cognitive and practical) to their ultimate deity through the intermediation of the God and Goddess. Although the ultimate deity is distant and hard for humans to relate to, Wiccans “link with this force through their deities. In accordance with the principles of nature, the supreme power was personified into two basic beings: the Goddess and the God” (2004: 9). He writes that “Wicca reveres these twin deities because of its links with nature. Since most (but certainly not all) nature is divided into gender, the deities embodying it are similarily conceived” (2004: 9). The God and Goddess are immanent powers: “The Goddess and God are both within ourselves and manifest in all nature” (2004: 4); they are “omnipresent” (2004: 5).

Cunningham also tells us that the god and goddess are natural creative powers: “the deities are the creative forces of the universe (not just symbols)” (2004: 14, itals his). However, he then tells us that the deities are personifications of those creative forces; they are projections of human forms onto impersonal energies: “the deities didn’t exist before our spiritual ancestor’s acknowledgement of them. However, the energies behind them did; they created us. Early worshippers recognized these forces as the Goddess and God, personifying them in an attempt to understand them.” (2004: 10, italics his).

Cuhulain writes: “The Wiccan concept of the Divine is shaped by what we see around us in the natural world. . . . We conceive of Divinity as manifesting as both female and male, as this reflects what we see in our universe. Threfore, unlike Christianity, we are not monotheistic. Most Wiccans recognize a Goddess and a God.”(2011: 14)

Sabin writes that “Wiccans believe that deity separates (or we separate it) into facets – or aspects – that humans can relate to. The first ‘division’ of deity is into its male and female halves. . . . The two main aspects of deity that Wiccans work with – the male and the female – are simply called the God and the Goddess” (2011: 26).

Silver Elder writes that “the Divine Source [is] manifest as a binary force of male and female which we call the God and Goddess” (2011: 9). She says that Wicca involves “the veneration of the God and Goddess of Nature” (2011: 13) and that “The God and Goddess are revered and celebrated as a binary team, representing the ultimate power and force” (2011: 18).

More exposition and criticism of Wicca and discussion of its relationship to atheist philosophy: